Chapter 23

Corey was jolted awake by a simultaneous ringing of the phone and his doorbell. He noticed his headache from the day before wasn’t even close to being gone. In fact, it was worse. He wasn’t sure what to answer first. He glanced at the phone and saw Ileana’s name on the call ID. He decided to get the door first. It was pretty much a no win situation for him when he opened the door and saw Ileana standing there, cell phone pressed to her ear, with one pissed off look on her face.

“We need to talk,” she demanded as she walked past him into the house. He groaned and shut the door. Worst morning ever, he thought.

“What about?” He feigned ignorance only because he didn’t know what else to do.

“You slept with Amelia!” she yelled at him. He wanted to slam his head off of something.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” she shouted. Just as she yelled, she threw something at him. He only had enough time to duck. When he turned around, he saw it was her phone that had been aimed right at his head.

“What the fuck, Ileana?!” he called out. He knew he didn’t have any right to be mad at her right now, but she’d thrown a fucking phone at his head.

“Just tell me the truth for once!” He stayed silent, which was enough proof for Ileana. She let out a scream he didn’t think a human could possibly make. He managed to duck in time to avoid the wallet that was thrown at him next.

“Okay, fine. I slept with Amelia. I’m sorry!” he confessed. She screamed again. This time the makeup compact hit him in the chest. No ducking that one.

“You couldn’t even tell me! You let me find out on fucking TMZ!” Okay, not his smartest play ever. He should have realized that the first thing she did upon waking up was check that website.

“I’m sorry!” he apologized again. She didn’t throw anything this time. Instead she walked up to him and slapped him across the face. He’d seen it coming.

“You were really going to leave me for her?” she asked. Her voice was quiet this time. He’d hardly heard her. Jesus, he felt like shit right now.

“Ileana-“ He couldn’t finish. He didn’t know what to say.

“You didn’t though,” she said. He froze in his tracks. Had her voice just become less angry?

“No,” he said cautiously. He really didn’t want anything else to get thrown at him.

“So you chose me.” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was she forgiving him? And what the hell did he do now? He needed to just tell her. As he was finding the words to end things she flew into his arms. “I knew you loved me!” Shit.

He hugged her back simply because he didn’t know what else to do. It’s not like he’d ever been in this situation before. He didn’t love Ileana and he knew it. Even so, it was hard for him to leave her right now. First her grandmother, who he knew she was close to, was dying. Now she’d found out he’d cheated on her with his ex. Even so, she’d decided to forgive him for God knows what reason. He was in deep.

“We’re not okay, but eventually we will be,” she told him when she pulled away. He just stood there speechless. She took that as meaning that things were going to be okay between them. “I have some things I need to get done. I’ll come back over later. Things definitely need to be discussed.”

He just nodded. She kissed him quickly before collecting the stuff she’d thrown and walking out the door. She called out a goodbye over her shoulder and shut the door. He fell back on the couch with his head spinning. He’d never understand women.










“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” I said into the phone to my publicist. Unfortunately I hadn’t been very intelligent the day before. My outburst towards Corey was all over the internet, and probably the television soon enough.

“I get that, but we need to figure out how we’re going to spin this,” Zane said. Brianna was also in on the conference call.

“Maybe you should just say that you two know each other from home, not mention the dating, and say that the conversation was completely out of context,” she suggested. Both Zane and I groaned. That was totally not going to work.

“I don’t know. All I know is the guy I’ve been in love with since I was 16 years old is still fucking someone else,” I spat into the receiver. There was no response for a minute.

“We could say that you two have been friends for a while and he came to you for advice. You got mad at him for some kind of indiscretion,” Zane offered up. Again, I was less than impressed.

“Is that seriously all you can come up with?” I yelled into the phone.

There was silence for a few minutes as the three of us tried to think of any sort of excuse that could play that whole situation in my favor. I’d made a mistake. A big one. I really needed to have stayed calm and not done that in front of people that were going to report it, but I’d been stupid and too caught up in my emotions to care.

“Can you think of anything?” Zane asked. I’d had it with this phone conversation.

“Hey, publicity is what you are trained to deal with. This is your job, not mine. Do it,” I snapped. I hung up the phone as soon as I’d said it.

I fell back onto my bed. I felt like an idiot. What the hell had I been thinking? Not once, not ever, had I felt the need to do anything like that in a public setting. Even so, yesterday afternoon had been different. There was no stopping me then. I guess I was just a product of my emotions, just like everyone else. It was also not something I could necessarily afford since I was in the public eye.

My phone rang a few more times, but I ignored it. I didn’t even bother to see who was calling. The last thing I needed was a lecture of any sort from Zane or Brianna. I eventually just turned my phone off, not interested in anything anyone had to say. When my doorbell rang a little bit later I fully expected to see one of the two of them standing there.

“What the hell do you want?” I asked in shock when I saw Ileana standing in front of me on my doorstep.

“I think we need to talk,” she said simply. I shook my head and began to shut the door in her face. She stopped the door with her foot. I looked at her in surprise.

“I’m not in the mood to talk,” I told her.

“Well, too bad. I am.” I glared at her, and she stared right back at me. This was it. We were about to have it out.

“Then say what you have to say and get the hell off my property.” I was over pretending that I liked her.

“Corey told me you two slept together. I was pissed. I threw things at him. Then I realized something. He’s still with me.”

“Yeah? How long do you think that’s going to last? I’m not going anywhere,” I returned. She smirked at me.

“All I need to know is that he came home to me. He’s not here with you, comforting you over this whole thing. Instead he let me into his house and comforted me. Have you talked to him since this all happened?” I wanted to smack the grin off her face. Even so, she had me there.

“It’s kind of hard to talk to someone you’re not speaking to,” I retorted. It was lame, and I knew it. I was still in shock that she’d shown up at my door.

“Right, I’m sure that’s why. I just came here to tell you to stay the fuck away from my boyfriend. You blew your chance. You left him. You disappeared out of his life. He moved on and he chose me. Learn how to deal and get over it.”

I stared at her in complete contempt. It took every ounce of strength to not punch her. God, I wanted to. She gave me another one of her stupid grins before turning to walk back to her car. That was when I noticed Brianna getting out of her car and looking back and forth between the two of us.

“When was the last time Corey told you he loved you?” I called after her. I saw her body stiffen as she froze in her tracks. I hit a nerve and knew it. She turned to look back at me.

“And how is that any of your business?” she called back with her hand on her door handle. I shrugged.

“I guess it’s not.” I paused and watched her open the car door. “It only took Corey four months into our relationship to tell me he loved me. How long did it take him to tell you?”

It was a cheap shot and I knew it. Corey had told me he’d never told Ileana that he loved her. Ileana glared at me but didn’t say anything. Despite the lack of response, or maybe because of it, I knew that I’d won this battle. She gave me one last dirty look before getting back in her car. I watched her car pull out of the driveway with a smile on my face. Even though I was more than pissed off at Corey for everything, this had become war.

“Was that last comment really necessary, Lia?” Brianna asked walking up to me.

“Hey, she came here. I didn’t seek her out. She deserved every word of it.”

“You’re trying to steal her boyfriend,” she reminded me. I rolled my eyes at her and closed the door behind us.